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New Zealand’s Military Manual (1992) states: “As a general rule, an attack is not to be carried out if it would result in collateral civilian casualties clearly disproportionate to the expected military advantage.”

The principle of proportionality establishes a link between the concepts of military necessity and humanity. This means that the commander is not allowed to cause damage to non-combatants which is disproportionate to military need … It involves weighing the interests arising from the success of the operation on the one hand, against the possible harmful effects upon protected persons and objects on the other. That is, there must be an acceptable relation between the legitimate destructive effect and the undesirable collateral effects.

The manual also states that “launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects” constitutes a grave breach.

New Zealand’s Geneva Conventions Act (1958), as amended in 1987, provides that “any person who in New Zealand or elsewhere commits, or aids or abets or procures the commission by another person of, a grave breach … of [the 1977 Additional Protocol I] is guilty of an indictable offence”.

In its written statement submitted to the ICJ in the Nuclear Weapons case in 1995, New Zealand stated:

Discrimination between combatants and those who are not directly involved in armed conflict is a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law. While it is prohibited to actually target civilians and civilian objects, there is no absolute protection from collateral damage. The application of the principle requires an assessment of whether the civilian casualties are out of proportion to the legitimate military advantage achieved and whether collateral damage is so widespread as to amount to an indiscriminate attack.

New Zealand, Written statement submitted to the ICJ, Nuclear Weapons case, 20 June 1995, § 71.

In deciding whether the principle of proportionality is being respected, the standard of measurement is the contribution to the military purpose of an attack or operation considered as a whole, as compared with other consequences of the action, such as the effect upon civilians or civilian objects.

Upon ratification of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, New Zealand stated that references to the “military advantage” were intended to mean “the advantage anticipated from the attack considered as a whole and not only from isolated or particular parts of that attack” and maintained that the term “military advantage” involved a number of considerations, including the security of the attacking forces. New Zealand further stated that the expression “concrete and direct military advantage anticipated” meant “a bona fide expectation that the attack will make a relevant and proportional contribution to the objective of the military attack involved”.

New Zealand, Declarations made upon ratification of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, 8 February 1988, § 3.

Upon ratification of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, New Zealand stated:

In relation to Article 51 to 58 inclusive, it the understanding of the Government of New Zealand that military commanders and others responsible for planning, deciding upon, or executing attacks necessarily have to reach decisions on the basis of their assessment of the information from all sources which is reasonably available to them at the relevant time.

New Zealand, Declarations made upon ratification of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, 8 February 1988, § 2.